Help with knowing which programs to buy

[mrmulti]

Goal: have multiple locations (5) able to call in to a central quickbooks enterprise installation.

Confusion - which products (best products) to include in my quote.

1. Server 2008
2. terminal Services

Also locally 3 people will be logged in and using the quickbooks file, not necessarily through remote desktop, but they could if that makes sense.

Is there any reason to include server 2011? That seems very confusing and it also seems like overkill, but if so what benefits? And what add-ons?

 

[x11dude]

Hi MrMulti - I am a little confused as to what you're asking.

But I've found that QB Enterprise isn't as "enterprise" as they advertise. It benefits from being LAN attached and suffers corruption otherwise. And it can be difficult to manage centrally; there are too many times when you need single-user access and have to ask all users to log out of QB.

We do run Enterprise on Server 2008 and it works ok for the most part. Remote Desktop works - but isn't great - as users need Administrator access (!) to Windows Server.

That said, please clarify your question(s) and I'll try some opinions.

 

[kmcferrin]

Is there any reason to include server 2011?

Since it doesn't exist, I'm going to go with "no".

Have you looked at Intuit's recommendations? If you're trying to work out a multi-user implementation then you need to at least consider what the vendor recommends.

I would probably look into a Terminal Services/RDS implementation IF Intuit supports it. The issue with Admin rights being required is likely due to misconfiguration. Even if the app thinks that's what it wants (and I can't think of any reason why an accounting program would need admin rights), you should still be able to re-permission the relevant parts of the filesystem and registry to allow it to run without admin privileges.

________________________________________
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[mrmulti]

yes I did see the qualified claim that Quickbooks Enterprise works with terminal server, but that they do not support the configuration of it in some ways :

"Maximizing the Value and Performance of QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions with Remote Desktop Services
Summary: Remote Desktop Services, formerly known as Windows Terminal Services, is a technology that offers an efficient and cost-effective way to provide multiple users access to shared applications and data files. This white paper explains in layman's terms what Remote Desktop Services is and how it works with QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions to help you reduce costs and save time."

I guess if they put a whitepaper out on it .. also in this whitepaper it sort of answers my question as well. And yes quickbooks is flaky, the way they handle multi user access is horrendous. So I would need to get windows server 2008 R2 and Terminal server with at least 5 licenses

http://http-download.intuit.com/htt...s/pdfs/Remote_Desktop_Services_Whitepaper.pdf

 

[technome]

According to the PDF, administrator rights are not needed, but the change permission is needed for the data files, if not the Quickbooks directory (just like a normal LAN install). Fully agree Intuit drops the ball on install issues..yesterday I did a wk install for multiuser, install went south... the install changed the sharing permission of the wks QB data server.. (Why, and what right did they have to do this. an Ahole programmer)

I have not run QB on a TS but I love TS access speed, most programs run faster on a TS than on workstations if the TS has enough CPU speed, decent speed disk subsystem, and enough ram.

One security issue.. If you do not have a RD Gateway role setup on a 2008 server, users connect with port 3389 (or another specified port), which would need to be open on the firewall. More secure method is using an RD Gateway which is much more secure due to SSL and other security measures along with a TS (google it). Local users could also RD to the TS if necessary for QB access, but likely it is not and they should be able to access the QB data on the TS with a normal wks QB setup. RD Web Access role service, on the 2008 r2 or web access on 2008, can allow a browser connection to QB.
Regular RDP to local machines is not practical, as each accessing user needs an idle machine to log into. RDP access speed much is slower than TS access.

Best but more expensive
1. Server 2008, with the RD Gateway services role enabled, and/or RD Web Access role service enabled. A heavy duty server is not needed if the primary purpose is to act as a Gateway. A fairly cheap 3 GHz CPU ( a dual core is plenty), with say a raid1 SATA setup would do. Raid 1 for safety, as you do not want to rebuild a Gateway from scratch, even with a backup.
2. terminal Services server for QB and other programs. This needs to be fairly high powered, as to disk speed and especially the amount of ram.





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Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

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